


Trick or Treat

by earlgreytea68



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 11:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16474532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Pete is the only person Patrick knows who treats "trick or treat" as a serious inquiry, with special treats set aside for special people.





	Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! I have a very long meeting scheduled for this evening, so instead of Halloween festivities, I'm dealing with 2018. So I saw this challenge was going on, and everything about this fandom has been so lovely to spend the last little while in, so I thought I'd write something light and fluffy and fun. 
> 
> Thank you to leyley09 for looking this over for me; scarredsodeep for the incredible Peterick primer that helped so much; Trojie who happened to write a bandom fic that pulled me in; all the lovely people on the Inception Slack; and Aja who gave me this prompt. 
> 
> Also thank you to this video, especially [this part where hot 2003-era Pete Wentz gleefully shouts "Boys like you are overrated" with the crowd](https://youtu.be/RguSZKdItvs?t=1137) and [this bit where some random fan leaps on stage and grabs a microphone to sing along and Patrick's just like ::shrug:: "that's cool"](https://youtu.be/RguSZKdItvs?t=1221)

Pete has a fantastic idea.

So he tells everyone.

“I have a fantastic idea,” he announces.

“You think all of your ideas are fantastic,” says Patrick, because Patrick is never suitably impressed by Pete’s fantastic ideas.

“That’s because they _are_ ,” Pete says.

Patrick shrugs, which Pete interprets as _all of your ideas have made me lead singer in a burgeoning pop punk band so I guess they’re okay_.

“There was this one time,” says Joe, being unhelpful, “when you had an idea to break the world record for biggest chocolate chip cookie. That wasn’t such a good idea.”

“That idea was also a fantastic idea,” Pete says, “it just required more planning.”

“How big is the biggest chocolate chip cookie?” asks Andy, looking very serious, like he might be into planning to break that world record.

Pete’s not against trying to break that world record, it’s just that he has a fantastic idea right now that has nothing to do with it. “It’s really big,” he says. “None of you are being helpful.”

“Do we have to be helpful?” asks Patrick. “Usually you just do your idea thing whether we’re helpful or not.”

“I’ve _noticed_ ,” says Pete balefully.

“Hey.” Joe lifts up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I was totally up for helping with the chocolate chip cookie thing. We just needed tons of chocolate chips. Like, _literally tons_.”

“This idea has nothing to do with chocolate chip cookies,” says Pete, trying to get everyone back on track.

“Does it have to do with breaking world records?” Patrick asks. “Because I’m going to guess that every world record requires planning to break, so we should just give up on that right now.”

Pete frowns at him. “I’m definitely not going to give up on breaking a world record. You need to aim higher and demand more of yourself, Patrick from Fall Out Boy.”

Patrick gives him a _whatever_ look. “Can you tell us what your idea is now?”

“We should go trick-or-treat shopping.” Pete bounces on his toes with glee. He would fling out his arms and encompass the whole world in a hug, _that’s_ how fantastic this idea is.

His band does not appreciate it. Pete really needs to get himself a new band.

Pete frowns and says, “I really need to get myself a new band.”

Andy shrugs, completely unbothered by that threat. No one is ever bothered by that threat out of Pete. Pete needs to get better at being threatening.

“You mean Halloween shopping?” Andy asks, easily moving beyond Pete’s threat. “For costumes?”

“I thought you said we were going to be priests for Halloween,” says Patrick.

“We’re not shopping for _costumes_ ,” Pete says. “We’re shopping for _trick-or-treat things_.”

There’s a pause.

“Like…candy?” offers Patrick. “Do you mean shopping for candy?”

“Well, sure,” says Pete. “If you want to be boring.”

Joe says, “Buying candy _is_ a fantastic idea, well done, Pete.”

***

Pete looks bewildered and unhappy next to Patrick in the candy aisle, and Patrick can’t figure out why. Pete’s moods can be mercurial, can swing wildly between extremes, and sometimes Patrick knows you just have to ride them out. But sometimes, like now, Patrick has the nagging suspicion that maybe he’s the reason for Pete’s mood. That’s a nice feeling when Pete is off-the-wall bouncy and flinging gleeful affection around, but it’s a different sort of feeling when Pete is looking disappointed like Patrick didn’t fuss enough over a cute puppy or something. Patrick doesn’t like to admit how unbearable he finds it when Pete looks like that and he thinks he might be the cause.

So he says, “What?” defensively.

“You’re buying _candy_ ,” says Pete mournfully.

Patrick looks at the candy in his hand and says, “Yes? This was your idea. This was your _fantastic_ idea, remember? You wanted to buy candy, even though I don’t know who is going to trick-or-treat at a _van_. I feel like that is exactly the sort of thing your parents warn you not to do, you know? Accept candy from strange dudes in rickety-ass vans?”

“Of course no one’s going to trick-or-treat at a van,” Pete says, as if Patrick’s not making any sense.

Patrick feels like he’s missing half of this conversation, which isn’t an unusual feeling when it comes to Pete. “Then who are we buying the candy for?”

“I don’t know,” Pete says scathingly. “Are you buying it for _me_?”

“I don’t know, man, I thought I was buying it for trick-or-treaters.”

“Who trick-or-treats at a _van_?” Pete demands.

Patrick looks around, half-expecting to find them being filmed. Then he looks back at Pete. “Is this a prank?” he asks cautiously.

Pete throws up his hands in exasperation and stalks off.

Joe comes around the edge of the aisle with his arms full of gummy worms. “Dude, we are buying all of these and I don’t even want to hear any dick jokes, okay?”

“Does Pete seem weird to you?” Patrick asks.

Joe shrugs. “No?” he says. “I mean, he seems to think people are going to trick-or-treat at a van, but, you know, that’s just Pete for you.”

“Right,” says Patrick.

***

Pete isn’t sleeping because that’s just Pete for you, when Patrick whispers across to him, “Hey.”

“Hmm?” Pete responds, without looking away from the ceiling of the van Patrick’s been watching him stare up at.

“Can you tell me what’s up with the Halloween thing?” This is a good time to ask Pete questions like this. There’s an intimacy to these murmured middle-of-the-night conversations, when Joe and Andy’s breaths are heavy with sleep and Pete will tell Patrick anything, into the early hours of the morning. Pete will always tell Patrick anything, Patrick knows, but the nighttime conversations are the honest ones, the ones devoid of the slick layer of flirtation that can make Pete’s words to slippery to hold close.

“On Halloween, you trick or treat,” Pete says to the van ceiling, sounding impatient and sad with the impatience, like it’s sorrowful that Patrick isn’t understanding what’s happening here.

“Yes,” Patrick agrees.

Pete sighs heavily.

Patrick considers what Pete might really be saying. Sometimes, even in a regular conversation, Pete can suddenly snap out, _It’s been a metaphor the whole time!_ , and Patrick has to pause and regroup. He says, “Is this about the wordplay with my name?”

Pete smiles faintly—Patrick can make it out in the moonlight—and turns his head to look at Patrick.

When he stays silent, Patrick says awkwardly, “You know. _Trick_ or treat?”

Pete tips closer, rolls into Patrick’s space, whispers conspiratorially, “If you’re the trick, what do you think the treat might be?”

“Uh,” says Patrick eloquently. This is why Pete handles the lyrics.

“Aha,” says Pete, his words barely more than a breath. It’s a tone that should be followed by a kiss, and Patrick tips his head for it unthinkingly, not noticing he’s done it until he’s that much closer to Pete. Pete leans in as well, because this is what Pete does, this is what _they_ do. Patrick used to know something about the existence of personal boundaries but Pete makes him lose all sense of them. Or maybe it’s that he includes Pete within his personal boundaries, so he only notices intrusions upon them when it’s non-Pete, like Pete has the security tag that lets him through the alarm system unscathed, no sirens tripped. “That’s the question, isn’t it? What could possibly be an adequate treat? I mean, you give candy to the strangers who ring your doorbell. Surely you shouldn’t also give candy to the people you love.”

“What?” asks Patrick dazedly. He has no idea what Pete is talking about. Pete’s drifted close enough now that he’s tipped his head toward its usual cuddle position against Patrick’s neck, his hair tickling at Patrick’s nose and making it twitch.

“If you rang my doorbell,” Pete says, sounding sleepy now, because Pete generally doesn’t sound sleepy until he’s arranged Patrick into an ideal pillow shape for him, and then sleepiness becomes a Pavlovian response, apparently. Patrick has other responses to the feel of Pete’s eyelashes fluttering against him as he blinks, the way his lips shape his endless streams of words into Patrick’s skin, and those responses are the opposite of sleepiness, but hey, this is Patrick’s lot in life: the hottest boy in the greater Chicago area is triggered by Patrick’s closeness into inexorable slumber. “If you rang my doorbell, and said, ‘Trick or treat,’ what could I possibly give you? What treat would be good enough for you, Patrick?”

“I have ideas,” Patrick says, and then bites his tongue.

“Do you?” Pete asks blurrily. “Good. Because I have no idea what to get you. I hope you’re not just getting me _candy_. It would make me very sad, Patrick.”

“Oh,” says Patrick, strangled, because he doesn’t want to make Pete _sad_ , he tries to avoid that at all costs.

“I’m going to get you a _perfect_ Halloween gift,” Pete promises, and then promptly falls asleep.

***

Patrick corners Andy before the show and says, “Hey, do you know about Halloween gifts?”

Andy says, “Is this some kind of code?”

Patrick frowns.

***

Halloween is fast approaching, and Patrick has no idea what he’s supposed to get Pete. If he’s supposed to get him anything at all. He’s never heard of Halloween gifts. He’s never heard of people taking “trick or treat” as a serious inquiry, with special treats set aside for special people. He’s flustered and nervous over the idea that Pete’s expecting some kind of high-quality treat from him. Patrick doesn’t have a lot to offer, and there’s not a lot that he thinks Pete would even want. Pete’s needs are honestly pretty simple. Well, completely pie-in-the-sky unattainable dreams of mega-stardom aside, at heart Pete just wants his band in a van and music wrapped around his lyrics, someone to talk to through sleepless nights, someone to hand the poetry over to so it doesn’t feel shouted into the void. Pete is complex but also startlingly straightforward once you know him. You just have to believe that the heart on his sleeve is the truth, without buying into the idea that it’s an ironic cover-up for something else.

So it’s not like Patrick doesn’t know the things Pete wants. It’s just that Patrick can’t think of anything Pete wants that he doesn’t already have that’s in Patrick’s power to give him.

He just knows that apparently it can’t just be _candy_.

They play a driving Halloween show, finish it drenched in sweat, and Pete coaxes everyone into a motel room splurge in honor of the holiday. Not that it takes much persuading.

Patrick opens the candy he bought and peers out of the window and wonders aloud, “Do people trick-or-treat at motels?”

Pete shrugs. He’s already taken his shirt off, and his hair is spiky with sweat, and Patrick thinks they should both shower before they do the treat exchange that he’s sure is in his future. He has no idea what Pete’s gotten him but it’s probably something absurdly over-the-top and amazing in some incredible unpredictable way, because this is _Pete_ , and Patrick blurts out, “We should take showers.”

“Together?” Pete asks, head cocked like a hopeful puppy.

Patrick rolls his eyes because he knows he’s supposed to and says, “No, not _together_ ,” even though that has always sounded like a great idea but he knows Pete doesn’t mean it, not _that way_ , Pete just means it the way he flirts automatically with everyone he likes.

Pete laughs and disappears into the bathroom and the shower turns on and Patrick goes next door to Joe and Andy’s room and knocks.

Joe answers looking hopeful, and then disappointed. “Oh, damn, we thought you might be an actual trick-or-treater.”

“Just a trick,” Patrick says. “Listen, I’m just checking here: Did you get me anything for Halloween?”

Andy and Joe stare at him.

“Like…what?” says Andy.

“Do you want some gummy worms?” Joe asks. “I’m willing to share.”

“No. I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t get you anything, either. Did you get Pete something?”

Joe and Andy continue to look clueless.

“Does _Pete_ want gummy worms?” Joe asks.

Patrick takes some gummy worms just in case his treat for Pete turns out not to be good enough.

***

Letting Pete take the first shower was a tactical error, because when Patrick gets out of the shower, there is Pete, on the bed, all clean and fresh, soft, rumpled, touchable.

And he’s already eating gummy worms.

“Where’d you get these?” he asks, smiling happily like the sun rises and sets on Patrick because he procured some fucking gummy worms.

“I went trick-or-treating at Joe and Andy’s room,” Patrick answers.

“Nice,” beams Pete. “Did you wear a mask? Please tell me you wore a mask. Please tell me you were all sexy and mysterious and hid your identity and finagled gummy worms from them.”

“I did none of that,” says Patrick.

“Aw, Patrick,” Pete laughs at him fondly. “Did no one teach you how to trick or treat?”

“I feel like you have had very different Halloweens than I have,” Patrick says helplessly, because where is Pete _getting_ all this Halloween nonsense he keeps spouting?

Pete laughs again and rolls himself off the bed and says, “Look, it’s like this. Are you watching? Watch and learn, young Stump.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, bewildered as he usually is by Pete, and Pete tugs the bedspread off the bed and wraps himself up in it. “Oh, God, Pete,” Patrick says, wrinkling his nose, “do you know how filthy that thing probably is?”

“You were going to sleep under it later,” Pete points out.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to _touch_ it, I was going to keep things between me and the bedspread, you’ve probably caught a dozen fucking diseases from that thing.”

“Well,” says Pete, unconcerned, “’tis the season for horror. Speaking of.” Pete, wrapped in the bedspread, dances out of the room and lets the door slam shut behind him.

Patrick has a moment to wonder if Pete is going to bound around the motel terrorizing people, a motel-bedspread monster luring people in with illegal amounts of charisma, and then there’s a knock on the door.

Patrick answers it.

Pete has managed to get the bedspread entirely up around his head, his eyes peeking out through a sliver between the ugly patterned folds.

“Behold!” he intones. “I am a mummy, sent to you from the ghosts of failed love affairs witnessed from between my sheets.”

“The only thing fucking terrifying about whatever you’re doing right now,” Patrick tells him flatly, “is the fact that you now have that filthy bedspread _directly against your face_.”

Pete’s eyes flash with humor from behind the bedspread, and he roars at him playfully.

Patrick shakes his head and pretends not to be laughing.

Pete says, “Trick or treat,” and waddles his way over the threshold into the room.

Patrick takes a deep breath and says, “Okay. So. Are you ready?”

Pete lets the bedspread fall away from his face, off of his head, looking surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “Always. For what?”

“For your treat.”

“I’m…very, very ready for my treat.” Pete drops the bedspread entirely, a bastion of eagerness. “What’s my treat?”

Patrick picks up his guitar. Patrick clears his throat. And then Patrick plays the song he’s been working on, the melody he can’t get out of his head, the one he decided long ago belongs to Pete. It’s been Pete’s song for a while now, and he’s never used it, he’s never found lyrics he thought fit it, because none of Pete’s lyrics are about being in love with _Pete_ , all of Pete’s lyrics are too unkind to Pete for them to suffice for this song. But the song exists, because eventually, maybe, someday, Pete might give him lyrics that capture Pete refracted through Patrick’s eyes. Maybe, someday, Pete might love himself half as much as Patrick does.

Pete stares at him.

“Okay,” Patrick says, self-conscious. “So that was—”

“Play it again,” Pete commands, and backs up to sit on the bed.

Patrick plays it again, and Pete watches with his eyes wide and astonished. He looks like Patrick just handed him something magical and glowing, instead of just a _song_.

When Patrick’s done with his second time through, Pete says, his voice low with reverence, “What _is_ that?”

“A song,” Patrick says.

“I know. I can tell. But _what_ song?”

“I don’t know. Yours.” Patrick is embarrassed by this. “It’s your treat. You were making a big deal about the whole trick or treat thing, and wanting a special treat, so there you have it. I’ve had that song stuck in my head for a while, and it’s yours. I’m giving it to you.”

Pete looks at Patrick for a long moment. Pete says slowly, “I’m the song stuck in your head?”

“I…” _Yes_ , thinks Patrick, and wonders how alarming that would sound to Pete. “I don’t know. Not really. Maybe? I’m just saying. Like. Happy Halloween. Or whatever. You have weird Halloween traditions.” Patrick, grumbling, puts his guitar down and feels exposed and out-of-sorts and grumpy.

“Patrick,” Pete says, and takes Patrick’s hand and pulls him down onto the bed next to him.

“What?” Patrick asks, and he knows he sounds put-out.

“That song’s so beautiful,” Pete says, open and honest and so, so disarming.

Patrick says reluctantly, “I know. That’s why it’s yours.”

“ _Patrick_ ,” says Pete, and then gives Patrick a little shove, which tips him backward onto the bed. “I have a confession to make.”

“Okay?” says Patrick, confused, and then even _more_ confused, because Pete suddenly swings a leg over his waist to straddle him, and maybe this could just be Pete Wentz’s particular patented brand of “cuddling,” except that this position gives Patrick zero ability to hide his reaction to this sort of cuddling.

He has a moment of thinking that, before Pete shifts, too deliberately perfect to be an accident, and Patrick is too startled to keep from hissing in reaction.

Pete smiles, a tip-you-over-and-shake-your-head sort of smile, and leans over to pin Patrick’s hands by his head.

Fuck, Patrick would have thought it wasn’t possible to get as hard as quickly as it happens at that moment.

Pete says, “I thought a lot about what to get you for a treat. I thought _so much_. And then I thought…” Pete trails off and dips closer to Patrick, _almost_ kisses him.

Patrick twitches his head upward and Pete dodges back and whispers, “Hey, Patrick. Say ‘trick or treat.’”

“I’m not doing some weird Halloween roleplay with you,” Patrick says immediately, reflexively.

Pete laughs, sounding delighted, and shifts his hips again meaningfully. “Yeah, you would if I asked, but that’s not what’s happening here. If you rang my doorbell. If you said ‘trick or treat.’” Pete ducks down to nuzzle behind Patrick’s ear, lets his nose drift over Patrick’s cheek. “Say it.”

Patrick would have said fucking anything at that moment. “Trick or treat,” he manages.

Pete presses his mouth against Patrick’s ear, speaks into it, a low, wicked tone that drags its way over every inch of Patrick’s skin, inside and out. And what Pete says is, “I’ll take the trick.”

Patrick blames the way Pete’s voice sounds right now, and the way Pete is hard and heavy on top of him, and the way Pete is pinning him to the bed, and the way Pete’s mouth has decided to suck on Patrick’s earlobe, for the fact that it takes him a second to react to that. And then his eyes fly open and he says, “Wait a second, _what_?”

“Trick,” Pete says, and brushes a quick kiss over Patrick’s lips, _finally_ , and only Pete would manage to slide a first kiss into a moment of irritation. “Get it? I’ll take the _trick_.”

“Hang on,” Patrick says, shifting his head to keep Pete’s lips off of him, which is a stupid thing to be doing but significantly less stupid than trying to shake Pete off would have been. Patrick isn’t about to shake Pete off under any circumstance, so he settles for dodging a kiss. He just wants to clarify a few things first. “I spent days freaking out about finding the perfect fucking treat for you, and you decided to settle on _a terrible line_ for me?”

Pete pouts prettily. “It’s definitely not a terrible line, it’s a really good line, it’s working on you.” Pete lets go of one of Patrick’s hands to reach between them to slip a hand inside Patrick’s sweatpants. “See? What a good line! It got me in your pants!”

“Just so we’re clear,” Patrick says, around annoyingly quickening pants of breath because it’s not like he can ignore the fact that Pete Wentz’s hand is on his cock, “that line did not get you into my pants.”

“Hmm,” remarks Pete thoughtfully, skeptically, and squeezes Patrick’s dick. “And yet…”

Patrick manages, “Your hand is in my pants for, like, _other reasons_.”

Pete smiles at him. And then Pete kisses him. Slow and soft and much sweeter than Patrick had expected. Patrick had imagined a million first kisses, but somehow all of them had them pressed up against the nearest flat surface, breathless and desperate and _needing_. Patrick had never bothered to imagine that Pete might kiss him like he _loved_ him. Pete kisses him exactly like that, and it’s _devastating_ , it takes Patrick completely apart, it leaves him gasping for breath and shuddering underneath Pete and he wants everything, every fucking thing, none of the things Pete has promised over the years but everything Pete can definitely give him. Pete, Patrick thinks wildly, has been promising all the wrong things, all the things Patrick doesn’t want, when what Patrick _does_ want is so very simple.

Pete looks as wrecked as Patrick feels when he pulls back, which makes Patrick recognize how much they’re in this together, how much they’ve always been in everything _together_ , from the day they met.

Pete looks down at Patrick and smiles crookedly. “Hi,” he whispers.

Patrick, clinging to some remnant of Patrick-ness in the middle of how much he feels dismantled, whispers back, “Just to be clear: You’re not going to give me a treat?”

Pete grins. “Oh, Patrick, babe, I am _definitely_ giving you a treat.”

And he does.


End file.
